


A Magician's Assistant is Not a Toy

by NeoVenus22



Category: Now You See Me (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 03:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henley and Daniel hash out their past and some uncomfortable truths (one of which is he sucks).  (Movie spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Magician's Assistant is Not a Toy

"I just wanted you to know," Henley said, one morning, eating a bagel while Daniel practiced his coin rolling again. He didn't look up. "This little thing you've got going on?" She gestured at her chin. Daniel glanced at her, his eyes cool, the coin still dancing from knuckle to knuckle. "It's ridiculous."

"I haven't had any complaints," he informed her with the slightest of smirks. No one wore smugness like Daniel. It worked on him, though.

In the month or so they'd been crammed in this apartment working, though, Henley hadn't seen him bring home any girls. Not that she was paying attention.

"And what's up with the J?" she pressed. "I've seen your license. Daniel's your first name. And your middle name is something that starts with a D." She leaned across the table slightly. "Did you get the idea from _How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying_?"

The coin stopped mid-knuckle. She'd gotten it in one. Merritt's mentalism tricks were paying off after all. Daniel started the coin rolling on his right hand this time, as though the pause was an orchestrated move. She might have believed it, if the upward tilt to his lips weren't gone. She'd gotten him.

"How do you know it's not the T.S. Eliot poem, if anything?"

"'Prufrock' is about a man who is afraid to say something, so he doesn't. When have you ever been afraid of anything? Or silent, for that matter?"

"So a musical it is," said Daniel coolly.

"That show's all about failing upwards," she added, for the one extra dig. It was funny how they could pick up where they left off, each of them going for that one last slam, to rub salt in open wounds. She seemed to remember once upon a time they were friends, partners, but it was vague and far off. The memories of arguments were so much easier to dredge up.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "It's about showmanship. About getting someone to believe what you want them to believe."

"The secret ode to illusionists everywhere?" she said. Daniel nodded, looking at her with condescending pride, as if she was a child who'd just learned her first word - which he'd taught her. "Or it's more likely your ego is so big you decided that the narrative of a musical that existed before you were born was modeled after your own career."

The coin had disappeared. She assumed he'd pocketed it without her seeing; his slight of hand was respectable. Daniel's face was tense with displeasure.

"You know, I don't know if this is gonna work," he said. "Our working together again."

"What, because this time we're on equal footing and you can't control me?"

Daniel settled back in his chair, that quick anger gone from his face. "So you're still pissed off about that?"

That was the infuriating essence of Daniel Atlas. (Screw the J.) Calling him a control freak was a slam against him, not a testament to his character, but he'd taken it as the latter. Insults rolled right off of him. And then somehow, with his extreme Daniel-ness, he'd turned it around to make it about Henley and her issues. It was a hell of a misdirect.

"Pissed off about _what_?" she asked, unable to resist. That was her fatal flaw: inability to resist. She couldn't say no when a handsome young illusionists said he needed an assistant to be a master escape artist. She couldn't say no when different offers had become available to her, going in nearly sight unseen in the hopes they'd be better. (Some were, some weren't. The road to becoming the Henley Reeves in the water tank last month had been paved with a lot of skeevy people and the occasional bounced check.) She had certainly not been able to say no when a tarot card showed up in her tank telling her to come to this apartment. And when the opportunity, if you could call it that, came up again to work with Daniel Atlas, even better now than he'd been when she was squeezing her bedazzled ass into a trick box, she'd been unable to resist.

It was a curse.

"About having to be my assistant. We all have to start somewhere, Henley."

That was partially true, though it didn't apply to Daniel, who was even more egotist than illusionist, and had never been anyone's assistant.

It didn't say anything in their mysterious instructions that she couldn't beat the crap out of him.

"I'm not upset about having to be your _assistant_ ," said Henley carefully. "I'm upset that I had to be _your_ assistant."

"There is absolutely no shame in working for me. I have an excellent reputation and an illustrious career. You've seen the way Jack wets himself every time he comes near me."

"He'll get over that," Hensley said dismissively. "Everyone does. You're a great illusionist, Daniel, but as a human being, you suck."

"Is that why you broke up with me?"

"I told you as much when I did. Also, point of clarification, we didn't 'break up'. We were never dating. It was a business arrangement and I _quit_." Henley wanted to break everything on the table. But she didn't. Is that what he thought, all this time? That their relationship was a... _relationship_? She granted that he was cute: the floppy, unkempt thing with the half-assed stubble B.S. that emphasized his jaw and cheekbones. That was nice. And she liked his mind, the part that worked towards creativity and not ego-stroking or insulting everyone else. She wanted to slap him upside the head sometimes and say no, _no_ , you could still be good without saying everyone else around you was bad.

They had spent a lot of time in very close proximity with one another. Professionally, they were fantastic. Creatively, they were excellent. But the idea of actually _dating_ him was mind-blowing in the bad way. Daniel Atlas didn't date. He allowed himself victory lays here and there, to soothe his ego that he was that amazing. He committed himself to nothing but the work. And what was more, Henley had always admired that about him, because she was the same way. It was all about building a name, a reputation, a solid repertoire of amazing tricks that would make people sit up and take notice.

"Well," said Daniel quietly. Maybe this time she had finally flummoxed him. "I guess we're working together again now."

They'd both gotten exactly what they wanted: someone, _the_ someone, The Eye, had sat up and took notice. This was the culmination of a lifelong dream. They were looking at a truly legendary career.

"We are," she said. "Do you think you can handle it?" She meant it in the most expansive terms she could think of. Working closely with her again, working with an unestablished newbie like Jack, working with a fallen star like Merritt. Putting the past aside and shelving his precious ego for something greater.

"I can if you can."

Henley smiled at him. What else could she do? This was everything she ever wanted. "Abracadabra."


End file.
